Story by Mark Hume with Photography by Nick Didlick Saving Salmon: Over lunch with www.ariverneversleeps.com, Ron MacLeod, a former director general of the department of Fisheries and Oceans and Ken Kirkby, an artist and environmental activist, spoke about the need for a Speak for the Salmon campaign. Mr. MacLeod recently proposed the campaign, saying the public needs to be mobilized to start demanding of politicians that we have better fisheries management of wild salmon. Mr. Kirkby, who helped restore the salmon runs in Nile Creek, on Vancouver Island, and who has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of art to salmon causes over the years, agreed that people need a simple list of actions, so they can demand accountability from political leaders. The ‘Top Five Actions Needed Now to Save Salmon’ was one of the things that emerged from their conversation. “The one thing about the salmon is the passion they stir. You don’t get 300,000 people going to see the sockeye spawn in the Adams River without that passion. That’s what we need to tap into now – that passion for the salmon.” – Ron Macleod. Question: What are the key things that can be done right away to help salmon? Ron: They want to take gravel from the Fraser, but that shouldn’t be allowed. That’s one thing they can change right now. Pink salmon spawn in that gravel and pinks are a buffer in the system. You need to protect those stocks. Ken: We restored the pink stocks in Nile Creek and it had a cascading effect through the whole ecosystem around there. The Coho came back, the cutthroat came back….and in the late summer you find the motels and restaurants around there are full of fishermen again. So the fishermen and...

Story by Mark Hume with Photography by Nick Didlick After Ron MacLeod and his Speak for the Salmon campaign was profiled in The Globe and Mail, he got hit by a wave of e-mails. “They haven’t stopped coming in,” the former director general of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans said at his retirement home in Whiterock, a few weeks after the story ran, in late 2012. Mr. MacLeod and his old friend, Al Wood, had just released a paper, ‘Epic Fail’, which hit a nerve with the public. The paper described the crisis they see in the management of salmon on the Pacific Coast. They said the federal government, with the acquiescence of the government of British Columbia, were effectively managing salmon into oblivion. They equated it to the Atlantic cod collapse, an environmental catastrophe which the East Coast has never recovered from. How to turn back the tide in B.C.? Mr. MacLeod, who is still ready for a fight at the age of 88, said it is going to be up to the public to create an outcry. “People have to demand action from politicians,” he said. “They have to force this issue on to the political agenda. That is the most important first step.” Mr. MacLeod said it will take more than a handful of people raising the issue. It will take a mass. Significant change will only happen, he argues, if politicians become convinced that an important number of votes hang on their party’s salmon platform. “Currently … there is no one at the highest level of government to speak for the salmon,” Mr. MacLeod says. “The first step, then, is a British-Columbia-wide Speak For The Salmon campaign to get people to bombard governments and politicians (federal, provincial, municipal) with...

Story by Mark Hume with Photography by Nick Didlick He’s 88 and admits to failing health, but Ron MacLeod’s mind remains as sharp as a well-honed fish hook and his passion for protecting salmon is undiminished. Proof of that lies in a brilliant paper he has just written, with long time work colleague, Al Wood, which he hopes will stir a public outcry against government. This is an old warrior who is squaring up for one last fight. And politicians will ignore him at their peril. His paper, Epic Fail, is posted on A River Never Sleeps.com in the Currents section. It chronicles the decline of Pacific salmon stocks and warns that a total collapse – on the scale of the Atlantic cod catastrophe – is in the making, unless things change. Mr. MacLeod, a former director general of the department of Fisheries and Oceans, goes beyond doom saying. He lays out the history of failed government policies that have propelled us to this point, and offers solutions. In his paper he urges the public to stop whinging about the way things are and to start organizing to force action by government. If we don’t put the heat on politicians, he says, salmon will go over an environmental cliff. Jarring the political system isn’t going to be easy, he says, but it can be done. “It’s going to take an emotional outburst from British Columbians,” said Mr. MacLeod. “And if we want change, now is the time . . . there will be a provincial election next year, and a federal election in three years. . .politicians are open to change if they feel they will lose enough votes.” As a young boy Mr. MacLeod went on patrol with his father, then a fisheries...

By Al Wood and Ron MacLeod with Photography by Nick Didlick An excerpt from Epic Fail – Canada’s Fishery Dilemma. It is clear that a different strategy for saving the salmon is needed. The public of British Columbia have the power to save the salmon. The challenge is to get the public to exercise that power and use it to convince politicians that it is in the politician’s best interests to Speak For The Salmon. And, to do so by enacting and applying measures that ensure the proper conservation and protection of salmon and their habitats. The first step, then, is a British Columbia wide Speak For The Salmon campaign to get people to bombard governments and politicians (federal, provincial, municipal) with the news that: Residents want healthy wild salmon stocks in their future because salmon are important to them; B.C’s salmon heritage is too important to put to undue risk; Failure to protect salmon habitats creates an undue risk for salmon survival. Sustaining a blitz is essential if a good outcome is to follow. Utilizing social media such as websites, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Texting in all its manifestations, blogs, email and so forth provides Speak for the Salmon participants with relatively easy access to a rapid delivery system. Hand written letters still have impact if the volume is high. Articles/op-eds in newspapers and video stories on TV are time consuming but can be very effective. Community meetings to promote community action can be effective. Calling on elected politicians to speak to community groups is another good avenue even though it may be a difficult one for some politicians to handle …. but, that is the nature of accountability. Citizens need to become Salmon Speakers. If a successful blitz causes politicians to come around...